


Being Good Isn't Always Easy

by valderys



Category: American Gothic, Son of a Preacher Man (Song)
Genre: Crossover, First Time, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb Temple has always avoided relationships, because the more people that care for him, the more vulnerable he is to being hurt by his father Lucas Buck.  Billy-Ray, the preacher's son, is the only one who could ever reach him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Good Isn't Always Easy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newredshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/gifts).



> A treat that got rather out of hand on word count! I hope you are also familiar with American Gothic, but it made so much sense in my head to cross them over that I couldn't resist! :) To all American Gothic fans, I had no time to re-familiarise myself with the source material, so I apologise if there are any errors crept in due to my faulty memory.

My name is Caleb Temple, and I have had good reason not to trust the people in my life. I’ve had a lot of good folks look out for me too, and I know that it’s a struggle for everyone, and I shouldn’t be so selfish, but it’s different for me.

You see, my father is Lucas Buck, the town sheriff. I should say, my biological father is Lucas Buck. I found that out back when... Well, you don’t want to hear about all of that. Water under the bridge as they say. My _father_ was Gage Temple, not that he did love me - but I don’t blame him, not given what he knew, or suspected about what happened to Momma. (That was all to do with Lucas Buck as well, but I’m sure you’re not surprised, Lucas knows everything there is to know about everybody in this town).

Which is why it comes to this. There’s been something of a struggle over me, over the years, and I don’t want to go as far as saying it’s had my immortal soul in danger but it wouldn’t be completely wrong to say that neither. That’s what Merlyn says anyway. Merlyn’s my sister, you know, and I love her. I do. She’s been a good sister to me all my life, more than most folks have, I reckon, excepting the fact that she’s dead.

Did I not mention that? My sister Merlyn’s a ghost now, but she’s still a better person than I could ever be. Lucas Buck murdered her.

So, my home-life is a mite complicated. There’s been lots of other strange stuff too, including things I’ve done, I can’t deny it. I’m not free of blame in this. But Lucas has been wanting me to live with him for as long as I can remember, and because of that people I care about have had a tendency to get themselves mightily mixed up, or even dead. I’ve learned not to care too hard about anyone - it’s safer that way. For them.

I’ve stayed free though, so that’s something. I’ve lived with Dr Matt and Dr Billy, and I’ve lived with my cousin, Gail, and I’ve lived with Ms Loris at the boarding house, and through it all, I’ve done my best to stay myself. That’s all I can do, I think. I’m not evil, I reckon, but I’m not good either. I like eating pie. That’s something that’s certain.

So that’s why even though I’ve turned seventeen, there isn’t a special person in my life. I haven’t given anyone my name bracelet, or my jacket. I’ve gone to dances with friends, but I haven’t ever asked anyone out on a date, not since Mindy Marsh in ninth grade, and then she got all those boils and wouldn’t speak to me no more...

But Billy-Ray is different. He’s Pastor Joel Smith’s son, and his folks are incomers, called to serve the Lord here in Trinity, although it’s said that Reverend Smith’s wife - god rest her soul - had kin here. All I know is that Billy-Ray is different. He’s not afraid of Lucas Buck, not at all, he laughs at me when I talk about him, and I shake my head, because he doesn’t understand.

But it’s surely true that Pastor Smith is a good man, he comes round and sits and talks with Ms Loris sometimes, he makes her smile at him, as she’s rocking in her chair, and she gets out her apple cobbler for him, which is no mean thing. She don’t do that for just anyone. And I know Lucas has people he can call on, all the world over probably, but he never has yet found anything bad about Pastor Smith, or if he has, he’s never let it slip to me. And it’s also true, Billy-Ray is a good boy, and a good son, he’s always got a joke on his lips, and he may not be the brightest at school, but it doesn’t seem to matter to him. He doesn’t need to be the best at anything, or captain of the football team, or have the pretty girls stare at him from the bleachers, and I see Lucas sometimes eyeing him speculatively, but only in that way that means he wants to know everything, know everyone’s weaknesses and their flaws.

I know mine. I’m quick to anger, I get jealous, and I’m greedy too. I think that’s most all of them.

You want to know how I know? Billy-Ray and me, once the Pastor and Ms Loris got to talking, we would sneak out to the back-yard, and then Billy would take me walking through the peach orchard. We’d kick the grass, we’d grab sticks and knock along the trees like they were a set of fence posts. We’d talk of this and that, and Billy, he would smile at me, kind of side-long. His glances weren’t nothing to start with, didn’t mean nothing, but then later, I got to be expecting them, I got to be looking forward to him swinging by in his beaten old pickup, right up to the front of the boarding house, driving his Pa over to visit with Ms Loris. And my heart, it would be beating fast, and Billy, he would smile some more, kind of slow, like molasses, and just as sweet.

It was then that we might talk some more, maybe, and it might happen that it would go beyond common boy’s talk, and onto more serious stuff, telling each other our hopes and dreams. And Billy, he was dark haired, his skin turned bronze under the sun, and his limbs were slim and smooth - although I shouldn't have been noticing, what with the beautiful way that Billy talked, but I couldn’t help it, because I’m weak, and I’m greedy. But Ms Loris, she gets me doing stuff around the house, which means I’m strong enough, and I’m not ugly, and Billy was looking right on back, I’m sure of that. Because I’m not prideful, not particularly.

I fooled myself then though. I told myself everything would be all right. And I should know better, but I thought that Billy being so good and his pa being a Pastor and all, that he would be safe. That Lucas couldn’t interfere and ruin everything, wouldn’t be able to twist and turn things to suit himself. That’s why I risked it. When Billy asked me to meet him after dark, out round the back in the peach orchard, I went.

He had such dark eyes, they were so black in the moonlight, and he held up peaches for me to eat from his fingers, that he’d picked himself from the trees. The juice ran down my chin, so sweet, and Billy looked so serious at that. He put out his finger and he caught that juice, his skin on mine, against my chin, and up to my lip - and I licked his finger, licked it right off. I knew what I was doing. I was scared out of my mind, but I was full of shivery pleasure too, because this was what I had been missing out on as a young man until now. And I weren’t no coward, I’ve never been that either.

Billy made a little noise then, like an animal in pain, with his head held high, and him biting his lip. So it was me who completed the circle, it was me who took him by the shirt and drew him to me, because at the last it was Billy who couldn’t take that last step, but I could, because I wanted the taste of peaches, I wanted everything. And I’m greedy, remember? And jealous. I couldn’t have only peaches going where I so desired to be.

He was mine after that night. But I don’t want to show myself as all greed though - I was his too. Billy and his beautiful dark smiling eyes, his strong young body. We met up all over, in the orchard, in the Silverman’s barn, in the corn field. It was a magical time, we learned all kinds of things, more than book learning’s ever done for me, that’s for damn sure.

I knew it couldn’t last, but I was trying not to think about it. The night Merlyn appeared to me, looking ethereal and reproachful and sorrowful all at once, I knew things must be coming to a head, but I didn’t want to hear. You have to end it, Caleb, she told me softly. If you don’t, things will go bad. Lucas will stop you, and he won’t forgive.

Now, I may not have wanted to think about it, but I knew she was right, Merlyn was always right - comes of being dead, I suppose. She gets to see all kinds of things - future, past, it’s all the same to Merlyn. So I shouted at her - I said I was a mite quick to anger, didn’t I? - and told her she didn’t know _anything_ , and that we were in love. That Lucas had nothing on either of us, and Billy was such a good boy, that he wouldn’t be able to get at him that way, because the only thing that Billy wanted was me, and I wanted him right back. And this was all true as well.

So Merlyn took herself right off to Heaven again, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t stop thinking about it all. Because Merlyn was always right, which meant that Lucas would be interfering, and he’d be certain to do something, _something_ , to ruin everything.

But I am his son. I do have some power of my own. I’ve never quite used it like I should, because I’m always afraid that Lucas will turn it to evil along with me, but I do have it. Surely I could think of something?

So I bought two new cell phones, and I programmed all our numbers in each one, and I typed a text in each one too and sent them, and then the next time I saw Billy, in our peach orchard, I slipped one of the phones into his pants pocket. Before we abandoned our pants and our shirts too.

And it so happened that it was that very evening that Lucas chose to mention to Pastor Joel Smith that he’d seen his boy hanging around with his own son, Caleb, and wasn’t it fine that we were such really great friends, that we’d found each other in these homophobic times. It was romantic, really, such young love... And Pastor Joel Smith was filled with fire and brimstone and all the righteous wrath of the Lord, not to mention the anger of a pop who didn’t want to face the fact that his son was gay, and he marched right on down to that peach orchard and he caught us there, tired and blissed out, and naked as the day we was born.

My, there was such a howling and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth! Billy-Ray went as pale as the moon, and his knees quaked, and his lip trembled. I held his hand as long as I could, before the Pastor tore us apart and took Billy home, but not before I whispered to him that I wouldn’t leave him and I would get in contact, and that he should do what comes natural with what he found in his pocket. Then he was hurried away, with his pop praying over him like the devil himself was inside.

Which I knew for a fact wasn’t true because I was left looking at him. At Lucas Buck seeming so pious and mournful, but with that slyness in his eyes, that smirk in the corner of his mouth. With him acting so sorrowful that he’d messed up my life, that he was so ashamed, but when I was a man and a father I would understand, and then I’d want to do the best for my own son too.

I curled my lip, like I could taste lemons, but I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t - I was seventeen and I would be a man soon, and free of him, or as free as anyone is of Lucas Buck in this town. I didn’t even mention that all I wanted was Billy-Ray, and just how many sons did he think were likely from _that_ union?

Then Lucas leaned over to me and asked me, confidential-like, all mock sad, had I dropped this? Or did I think it had fallen out of Billy-Ray’s pocket? Such a pity that he and Pastor Joel were leaving town, and there wouldn’t be any time to get it back to him. And then it was that Lucas handed me the cell I’d left with Billy, damn him, because while I had expected something like this, it would have been a sight easier if Lucas hadn’t been so damned sharp-eyed for once.

You see, Lucas has something of an affinity with technology, with electrics and power, with lightning, and storms even. So I suppose I weren’t overly surprised.

After that, I only had Billy-Ray to rely on, and my own twisty-turny brand of luck, and the hope that my gift wouldn’t let me down just when I needed it most. Oh, and patience. I weren’t much good at that, but I had to make myself hold on and wait that summer, and that fall, and that winter too - I had to bide my time. I didn’t get no letters from Billy, either, but I weren’t expecting it. Lucas had probably set up some kind of hold at the sorting office, knowing him, and maybe the telephone exchange too, but I did promise myself that I would get those letters out of Lucas someday. Maybe on his deathbed. I think I’d like that.

I trusted my beautiful Billy, you see. I know he would be writing. I know he wouldn’t let us down, I knew that he was relying on me just as much, so waiting that year was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But I did it. Spring rolled right around, along with Billy’s birthday, and mine too, so now we were both free of our folks - legally at least. Although, of course, nothing’s ever that simple.

It was Spring before I saw my Billy again. I’ll never forget, it was a lovely morning, a bright clear and fresh dawn, when I poked my head out the back of the boarding house and saw that the peach orchard was in full flower at last. So I put my head back in, paused to let the anxious joy damp back down a touch, before filling up my backpack with essentials - I know Ms Loris would always send the rest along. Then I walked downstairs, helped myself to one last slice of rhubarb and apple pie, and walked out into the orchard. I took up my stick and I ran along the trees knocking at each one of them like they was a line of fence posts, and everywhere I idly tapped pink blossom began to rain down, until my hair was as full as my heart.

And only then, with my pulse fluttering in my throat, and my hands sweating with fear, did I turn around and look at the fallen blossom, hoping that... There would be something. Some kind of a pattern. A certain way of falling that meant the blossom spelled out a word, a place to go, a feeling...

And there it was, as clear as day. Sasser, said the trees, he’s in Sasser. A little place in Georgia, it so happens. I looked it up. And then I walked out of Trinity, with all its memories of joy and growing up, but an awful lot of sorrow too, intending never to return. Instead, I went to find my Billy-Ray, the preacher’s son, who loved me.

 

Epilogue and an Explanation

Now what the blazes has been going on, you might say, and I wouldn’t blame you. Billy is here next to me on the couch, nudging me as I write this, and he’s telling me I’ve left out the most important parts. I don’t know if I entirely agree with that but can see his point about one thing at least.

You see when I bought the cell phones and confused the issue with the texts and the numbers, and all that palaver, I was really just using smoke and mirrors, hoping that Lucas would find them and feel smug about it, and in feeling that, thinking he’d caught me out straight away, so that he wouldn’t notice I’d also slipped a solitary peach pit in Billy’s pocket at the same time. Who’d notice a peach pit? Then I told Billy to do what comes natural, and what was more natural to do with a peach pit than to throw it away? Billy did that, but he didn’t have time to even think about it until after his old man had dragged him half-packed and in disgrace away from Trinity. That little old pit is a small tree now, growing outside his Pa’s window in Sasser, and we visit it sometimes, to pay our respects, to say hello to our trees too.

It’s all linked, you see, pieces of the world, here and there. A tree here, a person there. You push one place, and the results pop out in quite another. Lucas Buck understands such things, but he doesn’t always remember that it’s not just networks of _favours_ that link people. It’s nature too, and spirit, and everything else as well. His powers don’t naturally work so well with growing things - although he can use them if he has to. I think my powers are different. I think nature likes me a lot more than it likes him - I hope so, for I sure like nature. It brought me my Billy, after all.

It’s real nice to finally know my calling at last.


End file.
